The good news is you’ll have a little more daylight for evening walks or early yard work, beginning Sunday. On the down side, your morning commutes will revert to near dark conditions.

Attribute the shift to Sunday morning’s arrival of Daylight Saving Time. The advent of summer hours comes early as a result of Congressional action in 2005 designed to conserve energy.

The diligent may want to walk through their house Saturday night advancing all of the clocks by one hour. Those who wait until Sunday morning might be surprised to learn that many church services will be wrapping up about the time they arrive.

Officially, the return to Daylight Saving Time comes at 2 a.m. Sunday.

As a result of legislation enacted by Congress, DST now begins the second Sunday in March and continues until the first Sunday in November, (Nov. 1).

Federal law does not require any area to observe daylight saving time. But if a state chooses to observe Daylight Saving Time, it must follow the starting and ending dates set by the law. In those parts of the country that do not observe daylight time, no resetting of clocks is required. Those states and territories include Arizona, Hawaii, Puerto Rico, the Virgin Islands, American Samoa, Guam and the Northern Marianas.

Daylight Saving Time is a change in the standard time of each time zone. Time zones were first used in the United States in 1883 by the railroads to standardize their schedules. In 1918, Congress made the railroad zones official under federal law and assigned the responsibility for any changes that might be needed to the Interstate Commerce Commission.

In the Uniform Time Act of 1966, Congress established uniform dates for daylight saving time and transferred responsibility for the time laws to the U.S. Department of Transportation.